Wajeha al-Huwaider had her passport in order and wanted to take a 45-minute cab ride for a summer vacation on the Bahraini coast, a popular destination in eastern Saudi Arabia.  Despite having her papers ready for inspection, a border guard refused to allow al-Huwaider to join her fellow Saudis into Bahrain, as a male guardian was not present to give his permission.  That’s par for the course for Saudi Arabia’s most prominent activist for womens’ rights:

Wajeha al-Huwaider picked up her passport, got in a taxi, and headed from her home in eastern Saudi Arabia to the nearby island kingdom of Bahrain — a 45-minute drive that many Saudis take to get away for the weekend.

Despite having a valid passport, Saudi authorities at the border sent al-Huwaider home. That’s because in Saudi Arabia, a woman needs permission from her male guardian before she can leave the country.

Al-Huwaider — a vocal women’s rights activist in Saudi Arabia — knew before she left that she would be turned away at the border. Her attempted trip was simply to make a point about the Saudi guardianship system that she says “controls all aspects of women’s lives.”

“Either you treat us like mature citizens or let us leave the country (permanently),” she told CNN.

She’s urging all Saudi women who are tired of “being oppressed” to go “to any border and try to cross it without permission from their male relative.”

Saudi Arabia has one of the most repressive legal systems in the world when it comes to the rights of women.  Literally, women can do nothing for themselves without the permission of their closest male relative, usually a husband, father, or brother, but in some cases a son.  They cannot drive, they cannot vote, and as al-Huwaider demonstrated this weekend, they can’t even take a cab across the border with a valid passport.  Women are chattel, property to be protected and bartered — and dominated.

Al-Huwaider has worked for years to change the plight of Saudi women.  She had reached prominence as an opinion journalist for the Arab Times, until her criticisms got a little too pointed for the royal family.  Her work as an activist is reported in depth by Joshua Muravchik in his book The Next Founders: Voices of Democracy in the Middle East, published just two months ago. It’s a book of hope, showing that al-Huwaider and others in the region keep working to free their nations from the tyranny that breeds extremism and violence. If you have yet to read it, start now.